Алистер Маклин - Partisans

She ignored him as Lorraine had ignored Petersen, to whom she now turned and said: ‘You lied to me.’

‘Dear me. What a thing to say.’

‘George here. His “nickname”. The Professor. Because, you said, he was loquacious–’

‘I did not. “Pontificated” was the word I used.’

‘Don’t quibble! Nickname! Dean of the Faculty of Languages and Professor of Occidental Languages at Belgrade University!’

‘My word!’ Petersen said admiringly. ‘You are clever. How did you find out?’

She smiled. ‘I just asked Josip.’

‘Well done for you. Must have come as a shock. I mean, you had him down as the janitor, didn’t you?’

She stopped smiling and a faint colour touched her cheeks. ‘I did not. And why did you lie?’

‘No lie, really. It’s quite unimportant. It’s just that George doesn’t like to boast of his modest academic qualifications. He’s never reached the dizzying heights of a degree in economics and politics in Cairo University.’

She coloured again, more deeply, then smiled, a faint smile, but a smile. ‘I didn’t even qualify. I didn’t deserve that.’

‘That’s true. Sorry.’

She turned to George. ‘But what are you doing – I mean, a common soldier–’

Behind the bar, George drew himself up with dignity. ‘I’m a very uncommon soldier.’

‘Yes. But I mean – a dean, a professor–’

George shook his head sadly. ‘Hurling pluperfect subjunctives at the enemy trenches never won a battle yet.’

Sarina stared at him then turned to Petersen. ‘What on earth does he mean?’

‘He’s back in the groves of academe.’

‘Wherever we’re going,’ she said with conviction, ‘I don’t think we’re going to get there. You’re mad. Both of you. Quite mad.’

It was three-thirty in the morning when Petersen woke. His watch said so. He should not have been able to see his watch because he had switched the light off before going to sleep. It was no longer off but it wasn’t the light that had wakened him, it was something cold and hard pressed against his right cheek-bone. Careful not to move his head. Petersen swivelled his eyes to take in the man who held the gun and was sitting on a chair beside the bed. Dressed in a wellcut grey suit, he was in his early thirties, had a neatly trimmed black moustache of the type made famous by Ronald Colman before the war, a smooth clear complexion, an engaging smile and very pale blue, very cold eyes. Petersen reached across a slow hand and gently deflected the barrel of the pistol.

‘You need to point that thing at my head? With three of your fellow-thugs armed to the teeth?’

There were indeed three other men in the bedroom. Unlike their leader they were a scruffy and villainous looking lot, dressed in vaguely paramilitary uniforms but their appearance counted little against the fact that each carried a machine-pistol.

‘Fellow thugs?’ The man on the chair looked pained. ‘That makes me a thug too?’

‘Only thugs hold pistols against the heads of sleeping men.’

‘Oh, come now, Major Petersen. You have the reputation of being a highly dangerous and very violent man. How are we to know that you are not holding a loaded pistol in your hand under that blanket?’ Petersen slowly withdrew his right hand from under the blanket and turned up his empty palm. ‘It’s under my pillow.’

‘Ah, so.’ The man withdrew the gun. ‘One respects a professional.’

‘How did you get in? My door was locked.’

‘Signor Pijade was most cooperative.’ “Pijade” was Josip’s surname.

‘Was he now?’

‘You can’t trust anyone these days.’

‘I’ve found that out, too.’

‘I begin to believe what people say of you. You’re not worried, are you? You’re not even concerned about who I might be.’

‘Why should I be. You’re no friend. That’s all that matters to me.’

‘I may be no friend. Or I may. I don’t honestly know yet. I’m Major Cipriano. You may have heard of me.’

‘I have. Yesterday, for the first time. I feel sorry for you, Major, I really do, but I wish I were elsewhere. I’m one of those sensitive souls who feel uncomfortable in hospital wards. In the presence of the sick, I mean.’

‘Sick?’ Cipriano looked mildly astonished but the smile remained. ‘Me? I’m as fit as a fiddle.’

‘Physically, no doubt. Otherwise a cracked fiddle and one sadly out of tune. Anyone who works as a hatchet-man for that evil and sadistic bastard, General Granelli, has to be sick in the mind: and anyone who employs as his hatchet-man the psychopathic poisoner, Alessandro, has to be himself a sadist, a candidate for a maximum security lunatic asylum.’

‘Ah, so! Alessandro.’ Cipriano was either not a man easily to take offence or, if he did, too clever to show it. ‘He gave a message for you.’

‘You surprise me. I thought your poisoner – and poisonous – friend was in no position to give messages. You have seen him, then?’

‘Unfortunately, no. He’s still welded up in the fore cabin of the Colombo . One has to admit, Major Petersen, that you are not a man to do things by half-measures. But I spoke to him. He says that when he meets you again you’ll take a long time to die.’

‘He won’t. I’ll gun him down as I would a mad dog with rabies. I don’t want to talk any more about your psycho friend. What do you want of me?’

‘I’m not quite sure yet. Tell me, why do you keep referring to Alessandro as a poisoner?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘I might. If I knew what you were talking about.’

‘You know that he carried knockout gas-grenades with him?’

‘Yes.’

‘You knew that he carried a nice little surgical kit with him along with hypodermics and liquids in capsules that caused unconsciousness – some form of scopolamine, I believe?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know that he also carried capsules which, when injected, led to the victims dying in screaming agony?’

Cipriano had stopped smiling. ‘That’s a lie.’

‘May I get out of bed?’ Cipriano nodded. Petersen crossed to his rucksack, extracted the metal box he had taken from Alessandro, handed it to Cipriano and said: ‘Take that back to Rome or wherever and have the contents of those capsules analyzed. I would not drink or self-inject any of them if I were you. I threatened to inject your friend with the contents of the missing capsule and he fainted in terror.’

‘I know nothing about this.’

‘That I believe. Where would Alessandro get hold of such lethal poison?’

‘I don’t know that either.’

‘That I don’t believe. Well, what do you want of me?’

‘Just come along with us.’ Cipriano led the way to the dining-room where Petersen’s six companions were already assembled under the watchful eye of a young Italian officer and four armed soldiers. Cipriano said: ‘Remain here. I know you’re too professional to try anything foolish. We won’t be long.’

George, inevitably, was relaxed in a carver chair, a tankard of beer in his hand. Alex was looking quietly murderous. Giacomo just looked thoughtful. Sarina was tight-lipped and pale while the mercurial Lorraine, oddly enough, was expressionless.

Petersen shook his head. ‘Well, well, we’re a fine lot. Major Cipriano has just said I was a professional. If–’

‘That was Major Cipriano?’ George said.

‘That’s what he says.’

‘A fast mover. He doesn’t look like a Major Cipriano.’

‘He doesn’t talk like one either. As I was about to say, George, if I were a professional, I’d have posted a guard, a patrolling sentry. Mea culpa. I thought we were safe here.’